unable to boot Motorola Powerstack II - Powerpc

This is a discussion on unable to boot Motorola Powerstack II - Powerpc ; Hi everybody,
I'm trying to boot Debian sarge 3.1 rc4 on an elderly Motorola Powerstack
II 604e (PReP/Utah). According to the Debian pages, this system should be
supported.
I downloaded the current floppy images and the CD #1, but I ...

unable to boot Motorola Powerstack II

Hi everybody,

I'm trying to boot Debian sarge 3.1 rc4 on an elderly Motorola Powerstack
II 604e (PReP/Utah). According to the Debian pages, this system should be
supported.

I downloaded the current floppy images and the CD #1, but I can't boot
from any of these. Booting from floppy results in "unable to load disk
label", booting from CD outputs "could not load bootable image"
or something to that effect.

Any ideas on that?

TIA
Matthias
--
You can safely assume that you've created God in your own image when it
turns out that God hates all the same people you do.
- Anne Lamott

Re: unable to boot Motorola Powerstack II

In Matthias Koch-Schirrmeister writes:
>Hi everybody,
>I'm trying to boot Debian sarge 3.1 rc4 on an elderly Motorola Powerstack
>II 604e (PReP/Utah). According to the Debian pages, this system should be
>supported.

I didn't try sarge, but managed to install woody on mine, yes.
>I downloaded the current floppy images and the CD #1, but I can't boot
>from any of these. Booting from floppy results in "unable to load disk
>label", booting from CD outputs "could not load bootable image"
>or something to that effect.
>Any ideas on that?

I never got it booting from CD. The floppies should work, though. I still
have a working woody images lying around.
But your best bet is to set up a tftp-server and try netbooting. I've
install-tested some beta etch images that way, which worked partly.
I planned on testing some more last weekend, because the bug which
prevented the install should have been fixed, but RL got me distracted.

That you can't boot from the debian installation CD? Well, the format the
powerstack expects is very specific - even when you can boot other prep-
systems like a RS/6000 140p from the CD, that does not mean it'll boot
a powerstack. I've never seen a spec about the format, either.....